[by John MacNeill]
Goo goo g’joob!

In April 2005, “USN, DARPA See Blimps & HULAs Rising”, looked at a range of projects on the drawing board, including the Walrus heavy-transport blimp (that’s “heavy” as in “1-2 million pounds”) which offered the potential for a faster and more versatile sealift substitute.

In this article DID explains the Walrus concept, details the contractors and contracts involved in this initial award (including a few updates), and lays out the program’s structure… or at least, what used to be its structure. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) funded phase 1 contracts, but things seemed to end in 2006. Yet the imperatives driving the need for Walrus, or even for a much smaller version of it, remain. Is the Walrus dead? What about Paul? And could it, or a HULA like like it, rise again?

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Aria’s airship
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In early 209, Aria International, Inc. announced a contract from the Royal Thai Army to provide in-country surveillance and communications solutions and services, for an aggregate purchase price of $9.7 million. The RTA surveillance system consists of a manned airship with military-grade imaging and communications systems, a state-of-the-art Mobile Command and Control Vehicle, and upgrades to existing communications and facilities to receive real-time surveillance data.

Thailand has the questionable distinction of being saddled with the bloodiest Islamist insurgency most people have never heard of. The American export system hindering their order, however, is well known around the world…

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PTDS Aerostat
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Lockheed Martin received a $133 million award to provide the US Army with 8 additional Persistent Threat Detection Systems (PTDS) to support coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

A tethered aerostat-based system in use by the Army since 2004, PTDS is equipped with multi-mission sensors to provide long endurance intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and communications in support of coalition forces. 9 systems are currently deployed, and the additional 8 will be provided over the next 11 months…

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Skyhook concept
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In April 2006, “WALRUS Hunted to Extinction By Congress, DARPA?” dealt with the cancellation of DARPA’s WALRUS ultra-heavy lift program. WALRUS aimed to develop an airship that could lift between 250-500 tons, offering capacity that rivaled ship-borne options, but offered the benefits of transport all the way to the front without requiring ports and related infrastructure.

The program would have developed a 30-40 ton capacity demonstration model in its early stages, which would have had a useful role of its own. “Walrus Heavy-Lift Blimp Rises, Falls” also noted the requests of combat commanders for airlift options that could be used with smaller airfields, that cannot accommodate the 20-ton capacity C-130 Hercules aircraft. Not to mention related items like pressure to lower fuel use at the Pentagon, and 2005 warnings from the Army Corps of Engineers about energy costs/supplies and future military operations.

Now a private consortium sees similar needs and trends in key civilian sectors. A Canadian/American partnership that includes Boeing has set itself the public goal of building the commercial equivalent of DARPA’s desired demonstrator…

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TCOM 17M RAID Aerostat
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The RAID program is a combination of cameras and surveillance equipment positioned on high towers and aerostats, in order to monitor a wide area around important locations and bases. Aerostats differ from blimps in that blimps are powered, while aerostats are anchored to the ground via a cranked tether that also supplies electrical power. Because the aerostats are not highly pressurized, bullets won’t burst them and they can actually remain buoyant for hours after suffering multiple punctures.

The RAID concept began with a smaller TCOM 17M aerostat as the base platform, instead of the TCOM 71M JLENS aerostats used for cruise missile and air defense. Its sensors were also optimized for battlefield surveillance, rather than JLENS’ focus on powerful air defense radars. The result is a form of survivable and permanent surveillance over key areas that has been deployed to Afghanistan & Iraq. “Aerostats” has actually become something of a misnomer, however – RAID can also be deployed as a tower system, and this “Eagle Eye/ GBOSS” deployment is turning out to be the preferred mode.

Raytheon continues to receive contracts from the US Marine Corps and US Army for new towers, as well as maintenance of existing systems. FLIR Systems is another prominent RAID contractor, who has just received another order…

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RAID tower top
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The need for affordable 24/7 surveillance of key areas like bases and geographic chokepoints is a key feature of both modern counterinsurgency, and domestic/ border security. In the USA, this has resulted in programs like Raytheon’s RAID/ GBOSS towers and aerostats, Lockheed Martin’s TARS aerostats along the southern border, and Lockheed Martin PTDS aerostats on the front lines. The same trend can be observed in places like Thailand and in Israel, whose experience has led to export orders in Mexico and India.

In mid-June 2009, the Government of Canada decided to take a similar approach, and order aerostats and surveillance towers for use on the front lines. Instead of awarding contracts to Raytheon or Lockheed Martin, however, the 1st phase of Canada’s Enhanced Counter-Improvised Explosive Devices Project awarded a pair of contracts to Thales Systems Canada Inc. (C$ 12.5/ $10.8 million) and Rheinmetall Canada (C$ 13.6/ $11.75 million). The contracts will include supply and delivery of equipment and associated accessories, training, spares, and contractor integrated logistics support.

These awards are small, but there is a definite possibility that Canada’s decision will increase competition in the international military aerostat/surveillance tower market. In both cases, one can expect the awards to feed back into their parent company’s capabilities matrix, with the Canadian subsidiaries positioned as potential global centers of excellence.

JLENS Concept
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Experiences in Operation Iraqi Freedom showed that even conventional cruise missiles could have important tactical uses in the hands of a determined enemy. Meanwhile, the proliferation of cruise missiles and associated components, combined with a falling technology curve for biological, chemical, or even nuclear agents, is creating longer-term hazards on a whole new scale. Intelligence agencies and analysts believe that the threat of U.S. cities coming under cruise missile attack from ships off the coast is real, sophisticated and evolving.

Aerial sensors are the best defense against low-flying cruise missiles, because they offer far better detection and tracking range than ground-based systems. The bad news is that keeping planes in the air all the time is very expensive, and so are the aircraft themselves. As cruise missile defense becomes a more prominent political issue, the primary challenge becomes the development of a reliable, affordable, long-flying, look-down platform. One that can detect, track and identify incoming missiles, then support over-the-horizon engagements in a timely manner. Hence JLENS.

DID’s FOCUS articles offer in-depth, updated looks at significant military programs of record. This article covers the JLENS system, from key capabilities to program structure to ongoing procurements. Per DID practice, new materials will be highlighted in green type. The most recent news is R&D work a key technology: lightweight Cooperative Engagement Capability antennas…

• The JLENS System: This is Not Your Grandpa’s Barrage Balloon
• JLENS: The Program
• JLENS: Contracts & Key Events [updated]
• Additional Readings & Sources

Lockheed HAA Concept
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DARPA’s ISIS program is developing a stratospheric airship with sensor antennas that will include a radar nearly as large as the airship. This would create a battlefield surveillance platform with extreme endurance, and equally extreme resolution for its air and battlefield scans via radar and other carried sensors. This project is associated with Lockheed’s High Altitude Airship program, which is intended to soar at over 65,000 feet for over a month at a time, and could also play a significant role in ballistic missile and cruise missile defense.

Raytheon describes the radar task alone as: “Imagine a radar antenna that spans the length of a football field, yet weighs less than the 22 players in action on it.” Although it would contain “millions of electronic components,” the thickness of the antenna as envisioned by Raytheon would be about one centimeter (0.4 inch).

ISIS/HAA concept
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Like all DARPA projects, ISIS is pushing the limits of technology. Critical technology areas requiring further development include low aerial-density advanced airship hull material, bonding systems that will keep the radar attached to a hull with different thermal properties in temperatures that can cycle between 100 degrees F to -110 degrees (40C to -80C), extremely low-power transmit-receive modules for the radars, and novel power systems for long-endurance stratospheric airship operation.

The project is now proceeding into phase 3…

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Skystar 300
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Mexico needs surveillance, and many of its key surveillance assets are coming from Israel. Its E-2C Hawkeye AWACS aircraft were bought used from the Israeli Air Force. A recent $25 million purchase from Elbit Systems added cheaper long-endurance aerial surveillance via Hermes 450 mid-tier UAVs, as well as hand-launched Skylark-I mini-UAVs for troops on the ground. Now Aeronautics Defense Systems of Yavneh, Israel will be selling Mexico’s federal police over $22 million worth of its Skystar 300 surveillance aerostats and small Orbiter UAVs.

These UAVs and aerostats will be needed. Mexico doesn’t make the headlines very often, but the country faces what counter-terrorist analyst John Robb has called a growing “open source insurgency” of narco-traffickers and some leftist groups. The violence associated with “The Cartel War” has reportedly claimed almost 8,000 lives in the last 2 years. It is starting to create ripples of concern in many American Hispanic communities, who still have considerable family ties in Mexico. It also appears to be prodding the Mexican government into belated force improvements, as the scope of the growing conflict becomes clearer.

With respect to the systems ordered…

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Ripple effect
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“Sri Lanka: Fulcrums & Lions to Battle Tigers?” discussed the Tamil Tigers’ (LTTE) attacks on Sri Lankan military bases and oil facilities using an unusual weapon for guerrillas and terrorists: aircraft. The implications of those attacks are becoming regional in scope, which should probably be expected given that the LTTE was responsible for assassinating Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991. The Indian military’s reaction suggested that they were not taking the Tigers lightly, and approval would eventually follow for a follow-on IAF buy of advanced Israeli surveillance radars mounted on tethered aerostat blimps

India’s purchase involved strategic concerns that reach far beyond the Tamil Tigers. In time, that fact would be driven home by another surprise, this time from the LET terrorists that operate from Pakistan. The additional aerostat systems had yet to arrive from Israel when the 2008 Mumbai Massacres took place, but the gaps it revealed in India’s defenses, and the deployment of the existing systems to protect critical areas in the attack’s aftermath, strongly underlined the systems’ value. So much so, that India’s Navy is now buying them, too…

• Flying Tigers, and Unease in India
• The Aerostat Solution
• Updates and Developments
  
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